Youtube API for auto-generated channels (topics) doesn't return valid playlist

Question

I'm trying to retrieve videos related to "Auto-generated" youtube channel.

While it works some time ago (at least in 2023), recently I been faced issue — there are no more playlists like "Popular", or "Recent" returned by channels API, only "Uploads".

But even "Uploads" playlist doesn't have valid playlistId — playlistItems api throws error "The playlist identified with the request's playlistId parameter cannot be found."

Here's the sample code:

const YT_KEY = ""; // put your google api key here
const YT_AUTO_CHANNEL_ID = "UCNXJk0T4LRLpWS5XlVSg4uQ";

fetch(`https://youtube.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/channels?part=contentDetails&id=${YT_AUTO_CHANNEL_ID}&key=${YT_KEY}`)
  .then((response) => response.json())
  .then((json) => {
    console.log("Channel's related \"Uploads\" playlistId", json.items[0]?.contentDetails.relatedPlaylists.uploads);
    if (json.items[0]?.contentDetails.relatedPlaylists.uploads) {
      fetch(`https://youtube.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/playlistItems?part=id%2CcontentDetails%2Csnippet&playlistId=${json.items[0].contentDetails.relatedPlaylists.uploads}&maxResults=50&key=${YT_KEY}`)
        .then((response) => response.json())
        .then((json) => {
          console.log("\"Uploads\" playlist videos response", json);
        });
    }
  });

What can be solution for that?

Answer 1

One more time YouTube Data API v3 doesn't provide a basic feature.

I recommend you to try out my open-source web-scraping based YouTube operational API. Indeed by fetching https://yt.lemnoslife.com/channels?part=popular,recent&id=CHANNEL_ID, you will get the videos you are looking for in item.

With the channel id UCNXJk0T4LRLpWS5XlVSg4uQ you provided you would get:

{
    "kind": "youtube#channelListResponse",
    "etag": "NotImplemented",
    "items": [
        {
            "kind": "youtube#channel",
            "etag": "NotImplemented",
            "id": "UCNXJk0T4LRLpWS5XlVSg4uQ",
            "nextPageToken": "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,Cgs0NTJ5cVNRNlpZMCj0z5C1BjIiCgJGUhIcEhgSFhMLFBUWFwwYGRobHB0eHw4PIBAREiEgTA%3D%3D",
            "popular": [
                {
                    "videoId": "zzNLHZ-PKW4",
                    "thumbnails": [
                        {
                            "url": "https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/zzNLHZ-PKW4\/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwE8CKgBEF5IWvKriqkDLwgBFQAAAAAYASUAAMhCPQCAokN4AfABAfgBtgiAAoAPigIMCAAQARhCIFAoZTAP&rs=AOn4CLAZVpCyE7i9nzWclrmE7UMZTHc4DA",
                            "width": 168,
                            "height": 94
                        },
                        ...
                    ],
                    "title": "Ranking DIAMOND CAMO in Every CALL OF DUTY",
                    "publishedAt": 1690930118,
                    "views": 3225420,
                    "channelTitle": "BOOM YT",
                    "channelId": "UCKnbXodUoiLVjTR1UGDpMHg",
                    "channelHandle": "@BoomTheGrinder",
                    "duration": 46,
                    "approval": "Verified"
                },
                ...
            ],
            "recent": [
                {
                    "videoId": "Sissi8vHE-k",
                    "thumbnails": [
                        {
                            "url": "https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/Sissi8vHE-k\/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEiCKgBEF5IWvKriqkDFQgBFQAAAAAYASUAAMhCPQCAokN4AQ==&rs=AOn4CLChI5dNVjrJmJxHSZF0hmR6eJwGHw",
                            "width": 168,
                            "height": 94
                        },
                        ...
                    ],
                    "title": "\u0628\u0631\u06cc\u0645 \u0628\u0631\u0627\u06cc 18k \u0634\u062f\u0646 \u0633\u0627\u0628 \u0647\u0627\u0645\u0648\u0646\u061f!Call of duty mobile with new iPad m4(:",
                    "publishedAt": 1721751745,
                    "views": 152898,
                    "channelTitle": "mehtiyt",
                    "channelId": "UCzpy5rDkscnvJd3ywklrPQA",
                    "channelHandle": "@mehtiyt",
                    "duration": 23239,
                    "approval": null
                },
                ...
            ]
        }
    ]
}